


No Other Explanation

by NikeCastle



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6115879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikeCastle/pseuds/NikeCastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Slytherin Princess.” He mouthed with an off-kilter smile that read more like a sneer. </p>
<p>Being a Slytherin meant being powerful, being ambitious, holding court. And that’s just what Clarke did with a smile just as serpentine as the rest.</p>
<p>“You want a Slytherin Princess?” She mouthed clearly at Bellamy half-way through the meal. “You have one.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Three times Clarke Griffin denied she was falling in love with a Gryffindor, and one time where she accepted that she’d already fallen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Other Explanation

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting on here, so please, be kind! Love, Victoria

**-3**

Her mom had told her the odds of her getting into each House, all mapped out on pieces of parchment, comforting her with statistics. 42% chance of Ravenclaw. 20% chance of Slytherin. 38% chance of Gryffindor… 0% chance of Hufflepuff.

_But aren’t I loyal, Mum?_

_You are, Clarke. But you’re **not**  going to be a Hufflepuff._

That had comforted her for a second. Her eleven-year-old mind clung to the idea of numbers and facts and solidarities, and her Ravenclaw tendencies peeked out and wound around her like a familiar blanket. Statistically, Ravenclaw is where she should end up. It suited her best… But sometimes, she saw her mother, commanding a room full of men too frightened to disagree with her. She heard stories of Salazar Slytherin and how he never backed down from his beliefs, protecting the people around him creatively and sparing no thought to cost. She thought of the Slytherin children she saw hanging around London in the summer, moving in packs, people looking at them with a mix of fear and awe. Confident and cool and  _sure_  as the water that surrounded their sleeping quarters, because they had each other and  _no one_  was going to hurt one of them. Everybody pointed their fangs out at their possible attackers. No one feared an eagle’s claw more than a viper’s bite.

Clarke liked the idea of being cool and confident and feared.

But statistically, she should get used to the idea that she was going to live a life of intellect and curiosity.  _And doubt_ , a nagging voice whispered.  _Scientists and intellects are never satisfied. Never sure of anything._

_If you want satisfaction, be a Hufflepuff._  Another voice began to argue.  _Gryffindors are antsy, never satisfied sitting still. Neither are Slytherins, but in a different way. They’re never satisfied that what they have is enough to keep them safe, keep them on top._

With inner turmoil already in place, what she didn’t need was her father taking her on a walk about a week before she was going to board the Hogwarts’ Express.

_You can choose, Clarke. You know that, right?_

_Wh- **what?!**_

_You could choose Gryffindor just like I did if you really wanted. Braveness and excitement. It doesn’t have to be all about the head, Clarke. It could be about the heart too._

So that didn’t simplify anything. Her mother expected the hat to place her in Ravenclaw. Her father wanted her to choose Gryffindor. And two other Houses hadn’t been brought up at all.

Standing on Platform 9 ¾, Clarke felt numb and shell shocked. She barely hugged her parents back, even as Jake held back tears he insisted was just hay fever. Her eyes strayed anywhere else: to the billowing smoke coming from the train, to the cat _(_  kitten _)_ -a beautiful Scottish Fold with Siberian Cat Markings and hazel eyes that always looked melancholy _-_ she’d gotten from her parents, and then, all of a sudden, to a patch of hair that  _insisted_  on misbehaving.

Amidst all the carefully gelled and coiffed locks of hundreds of children trying to impress on their first day, Clarke included, there stood a boy who couldn’t have been more than a half year older than her both among everyone else and entirely alone. He may have had the height and build of a first year, but there was something in his eyes that whispered that he’d seen more in his life than the seventh years flouncing onto the cars. A woman stood next to him, checking over his luggage. A smaller girl with lighter coloring and shocking green eyes was bouncing from place to place, mouth moving as if she was asking him a dozen questions. He wasn’t paying attention to the little girl. Somewhere in the midst of trying to figure out why his eyes seemed to be a dozen different shades of brown when Clarke used to think there’d ever only been a handful, she realized that he was paying attention to  _her._

Coloring so fast her mother laid a hand to her forehead, worried she had a stress fever, Clarke jolted to herself and turned away. When she was brave enough to risk a glance back, he was already gone.

Clarke didn’t see him again until the Sorting Ceremony. Names moved by in an alphabetical blur. The first one she latched onto was Charles Avery. He’d been by the house every so often. Having a pureblood Slytherin mother meant that sometimes Clarke had been shoved into a heinous gown and pinching shoes and forced into their rarely used ballroom for a  _party_. Avery Jr. used to come along with his father Avery Sr. until the Senior was thrown into Azkaban for supporting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and Junior stopped coming by.

_Slytherin!_  The hat rang out only a moment after settling on the boy’s head.

Avery trooped off, a small satisfied smirk on his face as the Slytherins whooped and hollered.

And so it went, with Clarke getting antsy seeing as G wasn’t as close to the beginning of the alphabet as she liked.

“Blake, Bellamy.” Professor McGonagall’s voice rang through the hall. Then, there were the curls. The name was unfamiliar, so that meant that he couldn’t have been part of one of the pureblood families. Clarke even knew the Weasleys, and her father had told her that the family had been edging on blood traitor on and off for generations. Most of the other pureblood students knew what she knew and whispered. All of the girls had functioning eyes and whispered too.

The hat had barely brushed his head, touching on the topmost part of his hair, when it roared,  _GRYFFINDOR!_

The table erupted into cheers, and he sat down with much back patting. Somehow, his eyes caught hers and glinted, his smile ticking upwards almost in challenge.  _Beat that_. They seemed to murmur.

Clarke blinked widely, stunned, for a few moments before her gaze narrowed. She had no clue what she’d done to deserve the gauntlet to be thrown, but there it lay on the drawbridge between them. She supposed it was up to the princess in the castle to deign to come out and pick it up.

“Griffin, Clarke.” 

She pushed quickly through the crowd of children, a few shoulders and jostles and then she was there at the head table. All the eyes of the school on her. A hat  _looking at her_  expectantly. One small swallow and she sat.

The Sorting Hat didn’t brush her head and  _know_. It didn’t even settle for a few seconds before deciding. Clarke Griffin was a _hat stall_. The murmurs shot up around the room, but Clarke couldn’t hear them as the seconds ticked into a minute. The hat was  _talking_.

“Ah, ah, where to place you, Miss Griffin. With parents like yours. So different. And you, so impressionable… you’ve got them both inside you too.”

_Statistically, I should be in Ravenclaw?_ She tried to think, helpfully.

“Pish, Miss Griffin! There is no statistics in Sorting! Sorting is an  _art_!”

_Well, if it helps, I-I choose Gryffindor._

“That hesitation says you don’t. No, from your brain, it seems like your father chose Gryffindor.”

_Please, just not H-_

“You? A Hufflepuff? No. You are too self-serving and far too willing to do whatever it takes to defend your own.” Clarke wasn’t sure whether to be offended or flattered.

“Come now, child, you talked of choices. Yours had already been made long ago. You have already decided. You just refuse to admit to yourself-”  _Oh my goodness, please don’t do this._ “- and your parents-”  _Everyone will think I’m like the others. Spoiled._  “ - and the world -”  _Stuck up. Purist._ “that the spark in you means none other than-”  _Evil_.

SLYTHERIN!

The table erupted into cheers louder than they had for nearly anyone. Her mother was a Fawley, direct line, and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. While the Griffins were now mainly a Gryffindor brood, they were still an offshoot of the Selwyn family - another member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. She was pureblood royalty.

Her eyes found Bellamy’s even as she walked slowly down the steps, and Clarke learned something else about brown eyes. They turned nearly black when they were disappointed. She didn’t meet his challenge. If anything, from the slight smirk and the hardness in his gaze, he had already made up his mind about her. Just because she didn’t know about him did not mean he didn’t know about her.

“Slytherin Princess _._ ” He mouthed with an off-kilter smile that read more like a sneer. 

She picked her chin up and walked proudly to the table where one of the Parkinson girls had already cleared a seat. The rest of the first years at the table were already looking at her expectantly. Her parents were both high ranking in their own very significant parts of the Wizarding community and neither of them had the slightest taint of the Dark Lord on them. Half the Slytherin House was in awe of her family because they believed the Griffins got their power from their own resourcefulness and intelligence. The other half believed they were so good at hiding their connections to You-Know-Who that even other pureblood families were fooled. Neither of those reputations had the least bit to do with Clarke.

But being a Slytherin meant being powerful, being ambitious, holding  _court_. And that’s just what Clarke did with a smile just as serpentine as the rest. Because deep in her gut, she knew this was where she wanted to be. This was where she _belonged_. Her blood sang with adrenaline every time someone’s eyes darted to her for approval. If this were where she was placed, she’d rule absolute.

“You want a Slytherin Princess?” She mouthed clearly at Bellamy halfway through the meal. “You have one.”

The disapproval in his face slowly shifted. His eyes were shocked out of their judgment, and for one fleeting moment, he looked at her with a degree of respect.

Something coiled deep in Clarke’s stomach, and she decided to interpret it as hatred. Hatred for those puppy browns and those untamable curls. Hatred for that Gryffindor boy sitting a table away from her who might as well be a world apart. It was getting easier to see that was where he belonged. The cocky bravery radiated back at her… And everyone would just assume that as soon as  _Bellamy_  left Hogwarts, he’d join the ranks of people lining up to fight the Dark Lord. Clarke would be expected to hide behind a mask or a filthy rich husband, and wear a brand on her forearm.  _Death Eater_.

Oh, she hated him. There was no other explanation.

 

 

 

**-2**

It was third year, and while members of the castle had running bets for when Potter and Evans would finally get together, the same gambling folk had thrown their galleons in a pot for when Griffin and Blake would finally tear each other apart. Their rivalry was  _legendary_  and there was no pretense of attraction behind it. While James was chasing after Lily waxing poetic about the flaming red of her hair, Clarke was actually setting Bellamy’s hair on fire.

“Accidentally, of course. I was just trying to light my cauldron. His head is about level with my heater, sir.”

While James was bragging about his latest snitch catch, Bellamy was rubbing Clarke’s nose in the Divination paper he’d gotten an O on while she’d only gotten an E.

“It’s one paper, Blake. Need I show you the ten I’ve trumped you with in Transfiguration?”

“Ah, but Griffin, that would mean I’d have to pull out all those marks on Charms I’ve scored higher with, and we wouldn’t want a lady to go through such public embarrassment.”

“Don’t make me remind you of the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam.”

They were only tempered by their friends, who… strangely enough, bounced between them. Of course, Bellamy and Clarke were wickedly popular in their own Houses - Clarke was a princess who ruled without peer over all the pining future Death Eaters she’d never look twice at, and Bellamy was amazing at anything and  _everyone_  he put his hands on - but they’d also found a separate group entirely by accident.

Once, Hogwarts had made the mistake of holding a dueling seminar. Both Bellamy and Clarke were studying spells far outside their class’ scope. To be fair, the professors had the foresight to pair them with other people for the exercise, and it had gone well for all of ten minutes. Bellamy had just disarmed his opponent, and Clarke had repulsed hers.

“Expelliarmus? You really have no imagination, Blake.”

“Oh, and I see that Repulso took all your mental faculties.”

It only too two more back and forths like that before the two of them were squared off and sending hexes and curses and jinxes at one another. Snarls and growls echoed from the both. The classmates around them backed away from the streaming bursts of light, but the professors watching were intrigued by the light in their eyes… Were they… having  _fun?_

Needless to say both of them were  _dumped_  unceremoniously in detention, their wands confiscated for the next few hours. Clarke was still spasming occasionally from a far too powerful Tickling Hex. Bellamy’s nose released a black bat every so often as Clarke’s vicious Bat-Bogey Hex wore off bit by bit. Neither of them would do anything but glare at each other. That is until the entire room of delinquents began ribbing them for the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Look, Jasper, Griffin over here is bound to find you funny!” An Asian Ravenclaw boy remarked with a wide smile. Monty Green, Clarke recognized. A boy with a knack for… Herbology of sorts. She knew he had a whole underground system with students from all houses looking to him for the newest fix. Nothing too addictive, but everything  _massively_  fun.

Jasper, who Clarke  _didn’t_  recognize, threw himself into the seat next to her. His Hufflepuff tie was yanked out of its knot and tied lopsidedly on his head underneath a set of ostentatious goggles. His limbs seemed far too gangly or long for the rest of his body, and every time he moved, Clarke was afraid he’d break something. “Hey, Griffin, how many bones do you have in your body?”

Bellamy snorted across the way, but despite the questioning glare, stayed silent even as Clarke responded confidently, “Two hundred and six.”

Jasper stared at her a long moment before saying gravely, “How would you like one more?”

Clarke’s jaw dropped in horror, and she was about to tell him off when a large spasm worked its way up her spine, and a loud guffaw echoed from her lips as the tickles pulsed through her body.

“Damn, Monty! You were right about the nose wiggle!”

“That was actually Finn’s find.” There was another Hufflepuff boy on Monty’s other side, and he gave Clarke a little salute that made her heart thump weirdly.

“Your nose crinkles about thirty seconds before another tickle attack. Figured someone should laugh at Jasper’s jokes. No one who isn’t at least mildly hexed or not in their right mind would do it.”

“Oi!” Jasper gasped, placing a delicate hand over his chest in offense.

Clarke and Bellamy both lost themselves in genuine laughter long enough to forget that they hated each other… For five minutes at least.

Ever since then, the three boys were part of a small circle of people Clarke considered her friends. Unfortunately, they were also Bellamy’s friends now too. While the guys would always watch the two of them fight like they were at a badminton match _(_  one time, they really went at it in the middle of a meal, and the house elves apparated some popcorn into the hands of everyone in listening distance _),_  they also were growing to be the only people in the castle who could force them into a tentative truce.

Clarke and Bellamy, in turn, kept the hounds off them. Finn could hold his own fairly decently - as a Hufflepuff Chaser, he was pretty well-liked - but Jasper and Monty were the exact kind of boys bullies dreamed about. Jasper got it worst of all, though Monty’s stashes had been raided on multiple occasions by people not willing to give up the Galleons his supply cost. Clarke and Bellamy put a stop to that in half the houses. No one was willing to cross the Slytherin Princess with her death glares and sharp tongue. Everyone was falling over themselves to show favor to the people Bellamy showed favor to, hoping it would earn them one of his crooked smiles. Clarke wondered if she was the only one who could see how fake the smile seemed.

Over time, Clarke grew closer and closer to Finn. A  _Hufflepuff_  boy. A half-blood. Her mother would be horrified. But Clarke didn’t care. She was  _happy_. He took her away from the royal status she held and made her feel more like a girl, a teenager who could be loved for more than her blood status. Finn would turn hexes and jinxes into beautiful flirting teases. Avifors would be a flock of birds tangling themselves into Clarke’s hair and making her smile. The Tickling Hex he met her with would be softened as a way to get her to smile on her bad days. The Stickfast Hex to keep Clarke’s feet firmly on the floor so he could hug her and pepper kisses on her face and she couldn’t escape. She was so  _happy_.

Clarke should’ve known it couldn’t last.

It was the Yule Ball, and she’d been itching to go for ages. As a third year, she wasn’t invited, but Finn was a Fourth Year, and  _of course_  he asked her. The whole castle seemed to aww in unison when Clarke cut into a pasty during dinner one evening and a whole swarm of ocean blue butterflies soared out and formed a sweet question.  _Dear Clarke, Yule Ball? (_ The guy only had so many butterflies  _)_  Clarke kissed him in front of the whole school. Teachers pointedly looked away, but she could see the smiles on their faces. Potter was muttering with Sirius and the other Marauders at the Gryffindor table, and she could vaguely hear something along the lines of “how am I supposed to top  _that_?!” Only a foot away was Bellamy, and while his eyes were the same hard coal glares, he was clapping mockingly for her. She made a face back at him, too happy for anything more involved.

Then the night of the Yule Ball came. And Clarke had her nice fancy dress robes from France that her mother had imported  _(_ the woman did not know the meaning of understated _)_.  Her father had sent some diamonds that had been in the family for generations to loop around her neck. For the first time, being a princess didn’t feel like an act.

They’d gotten through four dances. Both their parents had forced ballroom lessons on them at some point - Clarke, because it was the proper thing to do, and Finn, so he could dance with his favorite cousin at her wedding - and they whirled around the Great Hall with so much grace, the other Slytherin girls were oohing at them. Clarke grinned at Finn and Jasper as they danced, chuckling into Finn’s shoulder as she watched them slip firewhiskey into the punch. She waved at Lily Evans, and with a silent  _Flippendo_ , tripped her relentless pursuer, James Potter. And she  _pointedly_  ignored Bellamy Blake who had come in with not  _one_  but  _three_  girls on his arms… Granted, one of them was his sister  _(_  Octavia had threatened to do something that would earn her a semester’s detention if he didn’t bring her  _)_ , but he didn’t need to bring  _two_  more, did he? And one of them was rumored to be part Veela, for crying out loud.

Despite Clarke being determined not to let Bellamy Blake ruin her night, her night still ended in disaster regardless. Shockingly, the infuriating Gryffindor was completely uninvolved. Instead, a girl in a Beauxbatons uniform with two huge trunks in hand did all the ruining for him. She wasn’t delicate pretty like most of the girls that the school normally produced. Clarke had seen a fair share of that kind in her travels around Europe with her family or gracing her family’s halls during a large dinner. She was loud and powerful and confident, especially as she walked right up to Finn and kissed him.

Instead of pushing her away or rejecting her advances, Finn  _melted_  into the kiss, his arms going around her waist. “Raven.” He’d murmured. Her Spanish accent - or was it Portuguese? Clarke knew Beauxbatons accepted students from both countries - was sultry in a way that Clarke’s English was always considered cold. She brimmed with life and fire… Clarke felt as though she had been injected with ice. Even though she heard her name called and hands reached out to touch her, one most notably tanned and freckled, she disappeared from the ball at a run.

Bellamy didn’t rush after her like in the cliché novels or movies. He didn’t end up in her room to comfort her and brush her tears away. Nor did he catch up to her and bring her back to the ball to dance with him and exact revenge on Finn. She didn’t see Bellamy for another five days.

“What’s Bellamy doing polishing all those trophies?” She’d asked Monty in a whisper, afraid he’d see her lingering in the doorway.

“Didn’t you hear?” Monty spoke at regular volume, not having the same fears as her. “ _He’s_  got detention for a semester. He punched Collins,” because Finn had become  _Collins_  to them when all was said and done, “straight across the jaw and knocked him out at the Ball. Bellamy keeps  _hexing_  the guy every time he sees him. If he keeps this up, they’ll keep him polishing things in the castle even  _after_ he graduates.”

Bellamy did turn back at the mention of his name, and he caught their eyes. He gave Monty a halfhearted salute, and Monty returned with a cheeky wave. To Clarke, his eyes were still hard, but he dropped his chin in acknowledgment. Clarke, however, smiled at him, her teeth peeking out from behind pink lips, her eyes soft and grateful. Bellamy swallowed and went back to polishing.

Clarke’s heart did a soft thump.

She told herself it was because she was angry that he’d punched Collins and she hadn’t gotten a chance to. That she was upset he was getting in trouble and fighting her battles for her. That she was frustrated he had a whole trophy room to clean and no one to help him.

The next day, she set a soapy pail down next to his in the trophy room with Filch slamming the door behind him. Picking up the washrag, she dipped it in the solution and got to work.

“Griffin, what are y-”

“You didn’t think you were the only one who wanted to hex that bastard, did you?”

He was so surprised, a boyish grin filled his face. She responded in kind. Peace was finally on the horizon.

She was hopeful. There was no other explanation.

 

 

 

**-1**

It was the first term in their sixth year. OWLs were behind them, Clarke and Bellamy were both prefects in their respective houses. Raven had transferred from Beauxbatons fourth year - thus the surprise - and been sorted into Gryffindor. She had also cut contact with Finn who had transferred  _out_  to Durmstrang. Monty and Jasper had led the year in Herbology. Clarke was top of the class in Ancient Runes, Potions, and Transfiguration. Bellamy was leading in Divination, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Charms.

“Just because you think you’re so  _charming_.”

“Look at my marks and  _weep_ , Clarke.”

All of them had flat out suffered enough in History of Magic, and dropped it first chance.

And then there were the little concessions.

On hearing that Bellamy’s mother was  _not_  a witch, Clarke tentatively told him a month later that she’d decided to add Muggle Studies to her classes next term. Knowing that Clarke was flat out fascinated by animals of all kinds, Bellamy took Care of Magical Creatures.

“That way, when you inevitably decide a Kneazle is adorable, it won’t die under our watch.”

“ _Our_ , Bellamy?”

They both took Astronomy, Bellamy for the constellations, Clarke for the planets.

Sometimes the workload got so intense that Bellamy and Clarke together would occupy a whole section of the library, claiming three tables and pushing them together. Their friends would find them in various sprawled positions, usually not in chairs. Once, Monty had gone looking for them, and found them curled together with Clarke’s head on his shoulder and their legs twined. Bellamy’s breath was ruffling her golden hair. He tiptoed out, not wanting to disturb them, a small smile on his face. Jasper’s squeal on the other side of the library when he heard the news was so enthusiastic that Madam Pince magically removed him from the library, and Clarke and Bellamy bolted awake, scrambling apart with faces flushed.

Things were easier with them while they were awake though. They weren’t above teasing touches or light leans. Everybody who had a class with them, student and teacher alike, would watch as they seemed to hold whole conversations without a single word. Clarke would raise an eyebrow. Bellamy would shake his head. Clarke would scrunch her nose. Bellamy would quirk a corner of his mouth. Clarke would full on smile.

They just made  _so much sense_  … to everyone who wasn’t them.

Despite their closeness in friendship, both of them looked romantically nearly everywhere else. There was the disastrous but passionate relationship with an older Ravenclaw girl, Lexa, which lasted six months, but left Clarke unfeeling for two. There was the friends with benefits thing that Bellamy had with Roma, a Gryffindor, for three months. There was a bad idea of a fling that only lasted a couple weeks between Clarke and Roan, a Seventh Year Slytherin  _(_  ending when she found out he had a bondage kink _)_. Bellamy had taken a Ravenclaw girl named Echo to Hogsmeade five times before cutting things off. Clarke even had a go at a relationship with her childhood friend, Wells, but it took them a month and a half to realize that they were better off friends than dates.

Bellamy and Clarke were never  _both_  single at the same time for very long. Every time one of them broke up with their significant other, the other one had just started something. They each found enough people to fill their beds when things got lonely on the in between. But never each other. That line had never and would never be crossed, as far as they were concerned.

“You don’t set those boundaries with the rest of us.” Monty wheedled at Clarke, trying to get her to admit something she was sure she didn’t feel.

“You’re gay. Jasper’s in love with Maya. And I already broke that boundary with Raven.” Clarke crossed her arms over her chest. “Happy?”

Monty groaned and shrugged, “You and Raven, huh?”

“One night only. Don’t worry, raven boy.”

A couple months ago, Bellamy started dating a lovely Hufflepuff named Gina. And this was  _dating_ -dating, not just the sex or undefined nonsense that Bellamy had with other girls. He was holding her hand in the halls, wrapping his scarf around her neck when it was the least bit nippy out, sitting next to her in meals and sharing food on his plate.

“Can she not feed or clothe herself? Honestly!” Clarke fumed, slamming a book down on the table with firm vigor.

Raven - who’d moved to the Slytherin table from the Gryffindor one - didn’t even have to turn her head, “She actually  _has_ asked him to cut back on the PDA. She tells him she can handle herself.”

Clarke sat down on the bench, slightly abashed, her cheeks pink. “Oh… well, I don’t understand why  _he_  has to make a fool of himself. Honestly, Bellamy Blake needs to grow another brain to compensate for the weakness of the one he’s got.”

“He’s in love, Clarke. Let him be happy.” Raven said idly, flipping through a thick tome she’d needed for Arithmancy. Clarke ignored the sinking in her stomach and the sudden tightness in her throat. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s still knocking you on your ass every time you do a Defense Against the Dark Arts practical.”

“He does  _not_!” Clarke exclaimed hotly, kicking her playfully under the table. “You have been talking to him  _way_  too much.”

The conversation didn’t help Clarke’s state of mind at all. It wasn’t that she wasn’t  _happy_  for him. She’d been the one always pushing him to settle down, to stop fooling around. “No one will think you’re serious about them if you don’t  _show_  you’re serious first!” She’d exclaimed just before Gina and him started dating. Maybe him dating her was Bellamy’s way of proving her wrong. A perfectly respectable and kind girl could pick him up despite his reputation. A sour taste sat in her mouth.

“Have you considered,” Jasper asked while stuffing his face with breakfast sausage one weekend, “that maybe you’re just _jealous_?”

Clarke had scoffed and snorted and shook her golden head with such angry fervor that Jasper had shut up right away. She should have been satisfied with that… if the slight smile on his face wasn’t so goddamn  _shit-eating_.

She couldn’t put her finger on what exactly was so irritating to her about being around him, but recently, she’d begun to pull away more and more. She couldn’t be in a room with the two of them without getting sarcastic or moody. And Bellamy didn’t go anywhere without Gina nowadays. So, by the transitive property, Clarke had not hung out with Bellamy in months. Because when she was in a room with him, they’d devolved into fighting about everything and nothing just like they had back in second year. Back before he defended her honor and never thought to let her know. Back before she got herself the first detention of her life so he wouldn’t have to polish a trophy room alone. Before.

Clarke was sitting alone in a classroom when it happened. Her hair was piled on top of her head, held together with a firm quill that’d been stuck through. Anyone who remotely knew her or about her knew that hair away from her face and off her neck meant  _do not approach_. Not even Bellamy risked doing anything but push food in her general direction when she was in one of those moods. She was neck deep in a paper three wand-lengths long for Ancient Runes, one two and a half wand-lengths for Potions, and one that was a whopping  _four_  for Muggle Studies. The last one infuriated her the most because Muggle Studies used to be the easiest.

Bellamy used to sit there with her and just explain everything, telling her what things happened and what things didn’t. He couldn’t explain scientific nonsense like how electricity worked or what specifically made cars run, past gasoline, but he could explain that pulleys instead of levitation charms made elevators go up and down. He told her with endless patience exactly what skateboards and scooters were. When she was sick and afraid she wasn’t studying for her culture exam the way she should’ve been, he came over and read her so many Muggle fairy tales that she aced the essay portion with flying colors linking The Warlock’s Hairy Heart with Beauty and the Beast.

That day, no help was to be found, and her eyes were swimming, and Clarke was practically on the verge of tears.  _That_  was when Bellamy decided to crash into the room and accost her.

“Alright, Clarke.” He said, with only a moment’s hesitation at seeing the state of her hair. “What the hell is your problem?”

Her jaw hit the floor. “I-I’m… I’m  _sorry_?”

“You never talk to me except to snipe at me or Gina or the  _both_ of us. You haven’t come to spend time with me in  _weeks._ Did I  _do_  something?”

“What? No! Bellamy! You didn-”

“Or is this some freaking amazing Clarke Griffin way of pushing everyone close to her away?”

She stood up at that, her fire starting again in her belly, her eyes blazing with fury. “What the ever living  _fuck_  is that supposed to mean?”

“You pushed Lexa away because you couldn’t get past your differences.”

“She betrayed m-”

“You pushed Roan away because he was too different.”

“The man practically li-”

“You pushed Wells away because he didn’t have enough chemistry.”

“Like my broth-”

“And now that you’re not dating, you’re pushing  _me_  away? Your  _friend_?”

“I’m not pushing you away. I’m not pushing my  _friends_  away!” Clarke exclaimed. “You don’t see me acting up with Monty or Jasper or-”

“No.” Bellamy got quiet, and her mouth snapped shut. “Just me… and…  _Clarke_ , you can’t tell me I’m your friend like Monty and Jasper are your friends… We’ve always been…”

“More?” She supplied softly, wincing half-heartedly.

He looked so vulnerable for a moment there, like a kid caught in the middle of a temper tantrum, someone who’d felt wronged, but deep down, just hurt. Clarke almost put words to the exact turmoil happening in her stomach

“Aren’t you my  _best friend,_  Clarke Griffin?”

She inhaled sharply, “friend” rattling around her brain like a rolling tin can, bouncing off the walls and causing her nothing but pain.

“I thought you were, Bellamy.” She started pacing in front of him, the curls falling out of place around the quill. “But you’re  _not_. You’re not the same guy you were months ago! You’re… you’re  _different_!”

“I thought what I was going for was  _different_!” He yelled, his robes flapping around and his tie coming loose with his wild gestures. “I thought all of this was so I could be different! So I could be good and respectable and honest and faithful and I could  _prove_  that I’m the kind of guy girls can take home to their parents and be proud of dating! I thought all of this was so I could get a good, respectable, honest, faithful girl to love me too!”

“She already does, Bell!” Clarke gasped out, confused and in conflict with the tears beginning to well in her eyes. And for one shining moment, hope shone in Bellamy’s face. “Gina  _loves_ you so much. Everyone can see it! I’m shocked she hasn’t just out and said it already! I’m shocked you two aren’t being positively  _sickening_  and cooing ‘I love you’ at each other every fifteen seconds. I am  _shocked_  that you haven’t said it to her first!”

“SHE’S NOT THE GIRL I WANT TO LOVE ME!” Bellamy roared. The paintings rocked in their frames, torn between fleeing from his ire and staying to listen to the juicy gossip. “… Clarke, she’s not the girl I love.”

Her breath caught in her throat and she stumbled backwards, “That’s j-just  _cruel_  to her then.”

“I didn’t mean to be. I didn’t mean for it to go as far as it has. I didn’t know I was doing well enough to make her fall for me.”

Clarke shook her head, turning away so she could wipe her cheeks discreetly before turning back. “Bellamy, you should go.”

“Don’t you want to know who I love, Clarke?” Bellamy asked, caging her with his arms against the desk. “Don’t you want to know what respectable girl I did  _all this_  for so maybe she wouldn’t be so embarrassed to bring me back to her nice big house with her parents and the rest of her life? Don’t you want to know who makes me bloody crazy enough to do something like that?”

A well of panic bubbled in her chest.  _You can’t come back from this. You can’t ever turn this around. You can’t take it back._ “No…  _no_ …”

“It’s you, Clarke. It’s always been you. I’m getting more and more sure every day that it’s  _always_  going to be you.” His forehead tilted against hers, and her eyes closed, unable to face the honesty in his. “And you’ve always been so stoic, so closed off, I’ve never been sure. I’ve never known. So just  _tell_  me, Clarke. Tell me what to do. Tell me that it’s ok to love you.”

“ ** _No, Bellamy!_** ” She cried, pushing out of his arms and running away even as she heard him call her name brokenly as she ran.

She didn’t love him. They were just friends. Best friends. She wasn’t jealous. She wasn’t afraid.

… She was  _wrong_. There was no other explanation

 

 

 

**+1**

Things devolved after that. Bellamy broke up with Gina. Only Clarke knew why deep down. Monty and Jasper were staying carefully neutral. Raven wasn’t really talking to Clarke except for a quick, “How could you be so bone-headedly  _stupid_. Can you sink any deeper in denial, Griffin?!”

Bellamy hadn’t even looked at her. Hadn’t sat near her for a week and a half.

Over and over her brain screamed at her to fix this, to change things, to be  _honest_. Merlin, if there was one time to be honest in her whole godforsaken life. Every day, she tried to pluck up the nerve to ask him to stay an extra few minutes after one of their classes or catch him in the hallways. But she avoided his gaze and strayed from his company.

_Coward, coward, coward_. She was glad the hat knew better than to let her choose Gryffindor.

Every day they didn’t talk the beat of accusation got louder and louder until it suffocated her. She missed him. Desperately. And she’d lied when she insisted to herself and to everyone around her that she didn’t care. She cared for him more than anyone she’d ever known.

One day, she was sitting, eating dinner away from her usual court of followers. The numbers of them multiplied when they heard she’d rejected Bellamy. They interpreted as Clarke  _finally_  accepting her heritage and taking a stand. Worst of all, the rest of the castle did too. Never before did the word “princess” ring through the halls with so much vitriol. But she didn’t care, she wouldn’t care, as long as  _Bellamy_  didn’t believe that.

“Oi, Griffin.” Mulciber nodded at her from a few seats down. “Congrats on ditching the mudblood.” The table quieted down and in a bit, so did the rest of the hall to some extent. Mulciber went on and on about how Bellamy didn’t deserve her, how he was stupid to think she cared about him, how he was glad she wasn’t rubbing elbows with trash riff raff and coming back to her people where she belonged. A few sets of benches scraped back as Raven got up to fight him, Monty and Jasper got up to join her, and Bellamy got up to leave.

The look of betrayal in his eyes even as her blue ones widened to tell him that all this was  _false_  was enough to spur her into action. “ _Petrificus Totalus_.” Then with so much anger, the spell affected his whole face, she cast the Pus-Squirting Hex. “ _Engorgio Skullum_.” Then the giant, pus-filled Mulciber’s head grew to the size of a pumpkin, causing him to tilt and fall over.

Everyone gasped, and Clarke got on the table in front of everyone in the school, but only with eyes for Bellamy. “LISTEN UP!” She screamed out, the hall going silent and thousands of eyes focusing on her. She swallowed softly. “I did not stop talking to Bellamy Blake because I was concerned about my  _image_  or the purity of his blood or whether or not he’s related to the damn Sacred Twenty-Eight! NONE OF THAT MATTERS TO ME!” Her chest heaved with the force she put behind those words. “I stopped talking to him, because I’m a cowardly piece of Grindylow shit. Because I was  _afraid_  of everything he was making me feel and asking me to admit to feeling. Because letting people in is the  _scariest_  thing in the world to me. But I’m going to stand here and bare my heart, because … th-there’s no one who’s more important to me than he is.”

Whispers went around the room, and Bellamy had started walking to her. Clarke found that she couldn’t stop talking. “I was jealous of you and Gina, and I was jealous of how happy she made you. I… I always thought to myself, that I could make you happy too, if I just got the chance. And then I did, and I blew it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around being weak like that, trusting you not to let me fall and trusting you not to hurt me. … I also couldn’t trust myself not to ruin this and lose you and hurt  _you_. B-basically if you still will have me, we have a lot of trust issues to figure out, mostly on my end.”

He let out a little chuckle that sounded like hope. “And I wasn’t wrong, Bell, you  _changed_  with Gina. You became the kind of boyfriend so many girls dream of, so many girls could fall in love with… but it wouldn’t work with me. It’d never work with me. I couldn’t fall in love with that guy you made yourself who was sappy and always giving in… and… that’s not  _us_ , Bellamy. I-I’d already fallen in love with the guy who fought with me on the little things just for fun, who fed my competitive spirit, who knew when to protect me, but also when to let me fight my battles. I missed him. I miss  _you_ , Bell. So much.”

He was in front of her now and she came down off the table to stand in front of him. “You asked me to tell you what to do. You asked me to tell you it’s ok to love me… It’s ok. It’s always going to be ok. And I’d like you to love me, Bellamy Blake, as long as it’s ok for me to love you too.”

His hands found her face, tracing over the features like she was still so precious to him, like he couldn’t believe she was _there,_  loving him. “It’s ok, Clarke.” He whispered reverently, and he found her lips with his.

Somewhere in the midst of the cheers and hisses and screams and boos  _(_  and the pitiful moans of a Mulciber no one cared about  _)_ Bellamy and Clarke lost themselves in each other, pulling each other close and not letting go. Six years of dancing through this tension and around each other finally coming to a head.

“In front of the whole school, Clarke?” He laughed against her lips a few minutes  _(_  seconds? eternities?  _)_ later. 

“You know me… if I’m going to commit to someone, might as well go big.”

“You’re crazy, Griffin.” He grinned against her mouth. Bellamy tasted like cinnamon and chocolate and mint.

“You love me.”

“You love  _me_.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t kick your  _arse_.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Oh, she loved him. There was no other explanation.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me at my [tumblr](http://saluteyourwings.tumblr.com)!


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